How United Airlines Lost my Family's Business. Mary Tyler Mom
We learned fairly early on that our flight was delayed due to mechanical issues. No worries. They would be fixing the plane on site with updates every 30 minutes. The updates did come every 30 minutes, but grew less encouraging as the time passed. We heard that the adjacent gate's flight had been cancelled, also for mechanical reasons, but not to worry, all flyers would be accommodated in a Honolulu hotel until they can catch the next flight to Maui.
Go read the entire article to see why the author is so angry.
I've gone through the same circles of United Hell, my problem was weather related and not due to a mechanical issue so we were even worse off, and the problem is not usually the real-problem. The real problem is United's response to whatever problem has caused people's travel problems.
The truth of the matter is this: When things go pear shaped for United they don't seem to have a plan for responding in a customer friendly manner.
In some cases, if you're a savvy traveler, this is OK. I've handled many a problems through either my phone's application or through a quick call to the Premier help-line. That customer service is usually pretty good and can get you out of a lot of jams.
After this year however, I'm not going to have my United status in my pocket any longer* (I've been mostly clearing out my miles accounts this year), so I'm going to lose access to whatever tricks allowed me to react successfully to changes. In a case of bad timing, I've decided to do this when United (who controls the IAH domestic market) is spiraling downward with no plans on returning to the top.
I think it's the last article that's the most depressing. Instead of having a plan to be the best domestic airline Jeff Smisek and company seem to be throwing in the warm-towel and settling for 2nd tier. These feels to me like an admission that they don't think they can fully solve the problems facing them so they're going to settle. And settling is never a good business strategy.
There are a lot of times when airlines just can't win. United will always have a sub-set of Houstonians, for example, who will always say "I miss Continental" (ignoring that it's Continental's management team in charge) and will knee-jerk suggest that they will "never fly United again". (Wait until they get a full-on dose of the Southwest experience today, that might change their minds.) Houstonians are an odd lot who seem to enjoy waiting in lines and griping that Houston isn't just like that European city they may (or may not) have visited once upon a time a long time ago. You can't win with people who have decided they want to live in a dream world.
In the real world, when flying out of Houston, United still has a flight network that's hard to beat in terms of global access. They have more direct flights to more destinations than anyone else and they have better departure/arrival times than most (excepting Southwest for regional flights, in which the two are about the same in price and schedule). Because of this many of us are going to continue hopping on United metal whether we have status or not. I know that I will, especially for business trips.
The question now becomes just how long the United Board of Directors and share-holders are going to continue to allow Jeff Smisek to pilot a sinking ship? Granted, they've had some bad luck, announcing the direct to Atlantic City flight right before the city went belly-up is an example, severe weather is another, but the preponderance of mechanical issues, their computer system working with all of the efficiency of a Commodore 64 and their lack of professional, courteous customer service on a consistent level is all on management.
What's worse, now, they don't seem to have any idea or impetus to try and make it better.
*Yes, I do realize that this is a problem I have brought on myself. However, given the changes to United's MileagePlus program I just don't see the value in paying more for flights in order to receive a service level that they're seemingly trying to roll into credit cards going forward.
